Ensuring Pareto Optimality by Referendum Voting (original) (raw)
Abstract
We consider a society confronting the decision of accepting or rejecting a list of (at least two) proposals. Assuming separability of preferences, we show the impossibility of guaranteeing Pareto optimal outcomes through anonymous referendum voting, except in the case of an odd number of voters confronting precisely two proposals. In this special case, majority voting is the only anonymous social choice rule which guarantees Pareto optimal referendum outcomes.
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Authors and Affiliations
- Department of Economics, İstanbul Bilgi University, 80310, İstanbul, Turkey
İpek Özkal-Sanver & M. Remzi Sanver
Authors
- İpek Özkal-Sanver
- M. Remzi Sanver
Corresponding author
Correspondence toİpek Özkal-Sanver.
Additional information
This paper has been presented at the Murat Sertel Memorial Conference on Economic Theory, 14–16 May 2004, Istanbul; at the Third Meeting of the Society for Economic Design, 30 June–2 July 2004, Mallorca and at the Seventh Meeting of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare, 21–25 July 2004, Osaka. We thank all the participants. We are particularly grateful to Steven Brams, Christopher Chambers, Franz Dietrich, Tarık Kara, Marc Kilgour, Semih Koray, Jean-François Laslier, Christian List, Thomas Ratliff, Maurice Salles, Tayfun S önmez, Harrie de Swart and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments. We thank the faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences of Bilgi University for supporting our participation in these conferences. Our research is part of a project on Electoral System Design which is financed by Bilgi University Research Fund.
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Özkal-Sanver, İ., Sanver, M.R. Ensuring Pareto Optimality by Referendum Voting.Soc Choice Welfare 27, 211–219 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-006-0101-7
- Received: 17 December 2003
- Accepted: 25 January 2006
- Published: 08 April 2006
- Issue date: August 2006
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-006-0101-7